J. Darhower - Sempre: Redemption

“So Carmine and Haven ran out of here awfully fast,” she mused.

“Did they?”

“Yes. Carmine looked like he was injured. I asked what happened, but he told me not to worry about it. He looked happy, though. Ecstatic, even.”

“Huh.”

“Do you know anything about that?”

“Maybe.”

She continued to stare at him, questions clouding her confused eyes. She wouldn’t ask, and he knew it. He appreciated her restraint. But this time, he felt she deserved an answer. This time, he felt she needed to know.

Leaning down, he softly kissed her mouth, a bit of her red lipstick smudging on his dry lips. She laughed, wiping it away with her free hand as he whispered, “I didn’t do anything except help him.”

Later that night, a call for a three-alarm fire went out through the emergency wire. Firefighters raced to the scene and filled the parking lot, trying to combat the vicious blaze in the darkness but to no avail. Fire ravished Luna Rossa, completely gutting the building and obliterating the landmark social club.

The massive pillar of smoke could still be seen across town come daybreak, but Corrado was none the wiser. He remained snuggled up in his bed at home, his strong arms wrapped around his wife as the two of them slept late for the first time in years.

It wasn’t until the police knocked on the front door of the Moretti residence that Corrado learned the news: his life’s work had gone up in flames, stolen from him by arsonists. They promised a full investigation, but Corrado didn’t need one. He knew right away who had done the job.

Finally, after all that time, the Irish had exacted their revenge.

Had anyone else been in charge, a full-scale war would have broken out in Chicago then, demolishing the Windy City as the factions hunted one another, determined to take each other out, but Corrado was smarter than that.

After a few botched jobs and a failed assassination attempt on Corrado’s life, the feud ended swiftly with a massacre at an underground gambling game run by O’Bannon. Men swarmed the place in the middle of the afternoon, disarming and slaughtering the gamblers one by one. The Irish never knew what hit them.

For good measure, and maybe a laugh or two, Corrado’s men set the building on fire before they walked away.

The media called it the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre Part II even though it happened in the late fall. The headline on the front page of the newspaper the next day read REPUTED MAFIA BOSS TAKEN IN FOR QUESTIONING, but was followed up shortly by THE KEVLAR KILLER WALKS FREE AGAIN. Everyone knew he had ordered it, but Corrado had a solid alibi, one nobody could dispute: He and his wife had been meeting with contractors, finalizing plans to build Luna Rossa once again.

Those weren’t the only plans in the making. While all this was happening, Haven and Carmine were across the country, safe and sound in the tiny ghost town of Blackburn. On the ground where the Antonelli ranch once stood—the ranch Corrado had purposely destroyed—the shell of a new building had already appeared. The three-story structure, designed from scratch, would someday house the first official Safe Haven.

“I want to build thirty-three of them in all,” Haven had said. “A place for people like me to go to start their new lives. When they run, I want them to have somewhere to go. I want them to know they’re not alone.”

TEN YEARS LATER . . .

Leaves crunched and twigs snapped as the little girl tramped through the shadowy forest, her dirty bare feet sinking into the cool ground. The plush grass tickled as it slipped between her toes but she kept a straight face, not daring to laugh.

No, laughing wouldn’t be good. Not here. Definitely not now.

Keeping her head down, eyes fixed on the ground, she followed the small trail that wove through the trees. She could hear the single set of footsteps stomping along behind her, could feel the pair of narrowed eyes burning holes into the back of her head. It made her muscles tense and she clenched her small hands into fists, wincing. Cuts and scrapes routinely adorned her body, the newest ones covering her palms. They burned, the skin rubbed away as drops of blood oozed from the filthy surface.

Ouch.

She stepped out of the trees and into the large clearing, the last remnants of bright North Carolina sunshine streaming on her as the sun started to set. Her feet suddenly moved faster then, carrying her away from the protection of the trees, but she wasn’t fast enough.

A strong hand clamped down on her shoulder from behind, instantly stalling her movements. “Oh no, where do you think you’re going, girl?”

Uh-oh.

She shrugged her shoulders the best she could. Where was she going? She didn’t know. It wasn’t as if she could escape him.

He let out a dry laugh at her lack of response. “Haven, look who I found.”

The woman swung around where she stood in the yard, panic on her face as her hands clutched her swollen stomach. She looked like she was carrying a watermelon under her pink shirt, but the little girl knew it was really a baby—her daddy told her so. A little brother named Nicholas, but she secretly hoped they would be nice and give her a sister instead.

But nice wasn’t a word she would use to describe them. No, they were anything but happy with her right now. A brother it would be.

Yuck.

Her mama let out a deep sigh that seemed to cover the entire clearing, wrapping them all in a sense of relief. “Where was she?”

“In the woods,” he replied, still keeping her locked in place. “She was climbing a big ass tree, as usual. Fell out of the motherfucker, too. She’s lucky she didn’t break her neck.”

She shook her head exasperatedly. “Can’t say I’m surprised. She is your daughter, after all.”

The hand on the girl’s shoulders disappeared seconds before her dad stepped around her, a pair of small pink Nike’s swinging in his hand. She had discarded them in the woods as she ran along the path, preferring to go barefoot. She was like her mama that way. She couldn’t stand to feel restrained. She liked to be free to run and jump and play and climb trees even though Daddy said it wasn’t safe.

Her dad strolled through the yard, kissing her mama quickly before going inside the big three-story house. They had been coming there to Durante every summer since she was a baby, although the girl couldn’t remember those first few years. Usually Uncle Dominic and Aunt Tess came along with her cousin Vinnie, but they took him to a football camp this year, so they wouldn’t make it to visit until later.

Aunt Dia was in town, though, with her new girlfriend. They came by a few times but were staying with other family, so it was just them for now—just her and her parents in the big, old house.

She thought it would be fun, not having to share anything, but it turned out the lack of chaos only led her to get into more trouble by herself.

The little girl still didn’t move from the spot in the yard, firmly rooted in the ground as her mama approached. She wiggled her toes, digging into the dirt, trying to distract herself, and couldn’t stifle the giggle that escaped her lips that time.

Oops.

“What’s so funny?” her mama asked, crouching down in front of her.

She shrugged her shoulders again, head still down, as she whispered, “It tickles, Mama.”

Maura Miranda DeMarco could only be described as a tiny tornado, a ball of energy that couldn’t be tamed. She was tiny, shorter than the average seven-year-old, but her size didn’t impede her at all. She would jump any hurdle, climb any obstacle, and solve any problem in her way. A combination of both of her parents—her dad’s daring personality with her mom’s strong exterior—she had proven to be a force of nature since the day she was born.

Her appearance, though, contradicted her fiery personality. Long lashes framed a set of big green eyes, eyes she had gotten from her dad, while soft waves of brown hair fell into her face. Her pale complexion had a constant pink flush to her round cheeks, splashes of freckles dotting her nose. She looked like a porcelain doll, vulnerable, breakable, when she was anything but.

The girl was tough as nails. If you asked her dad, he would say she came into the world screaming and hadn’t shut up since.

Usually bold and unrestrained, Maura was uncharacteristically quiet as she stood in front of her mama in the yard.

Reaching over, her mom grabbed Maura’s hands and pried her fists open, surveying the bloody scrapes. Wordlessly, she led her into the house, taking her straight to the kitchen and sitting her on the counter beside the sink.

“You know better than to run off like that,” she said quietly, washing out her daughter’s wounds. “We have to know where you are at all times.”

“I forgot,” she said. “I didn’t mean it.”

“I know, but you have to remember.” Her mama paused, sighing. “It’s not safe otherwise.”

Not safe seemed to be her parents’ favorite thing to say.

“I’m sorry. Really, really, really sorry.” Maura stared at her with wide eyes. “Really, Mama.”

A smiled tugged her lips. “I believe you, sweetheart.”

A throat cleared behind them. Her dad stood just inside the kitchen, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest. “I don’t know if I believe you. You didn’t throw in enough ‘reallys.’”

“Really, Daddy!” Maura said, nodding so furiously she nearly knocked herself off the counter. “Really, really, times twenty-nine hundred thousand million.”